


If you insist?

by rainftw



Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, First Meetings, Fluff and Humor, Jogerweek2019, M/M, for a millisecond, implied brian/roger, somewhat?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 08:34:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21033341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainftw/pseuds/rainftw
Summary: In which everyone is cursed with uttering the first words they're going to say to their soulmate. Every time they encounter a new person. Until said soulmate is found. Roger's phrase happens to be a little bit on the quirky side.





	If you insist?

**Author's Note:**

> i just hope 40% of it makes sense,

Roger was late. Not just a little, but like _late _late. Having woken up to your alarm and having realised class has already started kind of late. He groaned loudly into his pillow, forcing himself up on sleep-heavy limbs and combing his fingers through his unruly hair. He sprinted out of the door, not even five minutes after waking up, with pillow indents still on his cheeks.

He arrived to the lecture-hall with a spinning head and a furiously pounding heart. And a realisation that he was, indeed, very out of shape. He was just about to apologise to the professor when he realised it was a substitute teacher, and his veins ran cold. Before he could think twice, their eyes met and.

“Fuck off!”

The whole room turned to him then, Roger wanted to sink through the floorboards. Cheeks heating up. The man up front just gave him a slight nod, in understanding, and gestured to an empty seat at the top of the room. Roger was grateful. And embarrassed.

For the rest of the lecture, he paid his full attention to the information at hand. Which was uncharacteristic for him. As was embarrassment. He usually wasn’t bothered by the outburst, some people even found it a bit quirky. He’d started saying it when he was around two years old. Out of the blue, every single time he met a new person. That wasn’t out of the ordinary, it was bound to happen. Upon the birth of his soulmate.

It wasn’t the action in itself that was humiliating. It was the choice of wording. He has spent the past eighteen or so years of his life, wondering what exactly his soulmate did to enrage him this much, upon first glance.

It had been mortifying addressing his teachers this way as a child.

Kind of cool as a teenager.

Back to mortifying now, in his early twenties.

He supposed being in a room full of aspiring biologists was a good thing. He relaxed a bit further into his seat, staring ahead at the board.

“Hey, Roger!” A yell, from somewhere behind him. Roger whipped his head around from where he was packing up his books. He caught a glance of Freddie, for a second he was mildly confused.

“What are you doing here?” Roger asked, quirking an eyebrow up. Smiling nonetheless.

“What do you mean? I go to this school too.” Freddie teased. Roger snickered, punching his friends shoulder when he deemed him close enough to reach.

“Well, you don’t study biology now, do you?” Roger was _almost _beyond the point of being confused about Freddie’s intentions. At this point in their friendship.

He’d bumped into Freddie a couple of years back. When they had both just started University. And had been impressively inseparable since, the best of friends, really. Two extravagant personalities that somehow seemed to come together very nicely. Roger was grateful for his presence in his life, truly.

He shook himself out of his thoughts. Tilting his head at his friend thoughtfully, he _had_ sat through a whole seminar on biology when his major was in Graphic Design. Roger was impressed.

“No, but a certain blond does, and I wanted to ask him something!” The statement was said with way too much enthusiasm for someone having sat through a three hour lecture. A three hour lecture he wasn’t even supposed to _be_ in.

“Go ahead then.” Roger prompted.

“I’m throwing a party tonight, dear. I’d love for you to come.” He announced, not missing out the dramatic enthusiasm in which he gesticulated with his hands. Just _how_ much he wanted Roger there. Roger just cackled.

“You went to a three hour, 8am lecture, to invite me to a party?” He said, in utter disbelief.

“Yes!” Freddie’s eyes were positively gleaming, his energy was what Roger fed upon. They completed each other in so many ways, it was a mystery as to how they _weren’t_ soulmates.

“I don’t deserve you.” Roger said, making an act out of placing his hand on his chest. Sporting his best puppy-dog eyes.

“Oh piss off! I’ll see you tonight, yeah?” Freddie asked, as he slowly turned away, presumably to make it to his actual first lesson of the day.

“Yes you will!” Roger said, blowing him a kiss for good measure. Which Freddie caught, and put in his pocket. Roger snorted so hard, he didn’t know how his eyeballs had stayed inside his skull.

Another place Roger didn’t particularly like his opening phrase, was out shopping. He pondered whether to get whiskey or straight up vodka, slightly giddy with the idea of getting drunk later. He decided on the cheapest bottle of vodka, pulling a single carton of orange juice from the fridge along the way. Thoughts of whipping up a screwdriver the second he got home was filling up his mind while he retrieved his wallet.

“Hi!” A girl smiled sweetly behind the counter.

“Fuck off!”

She flinched. He sighed.

“Sorry, involuntary soulmate shit.” He said, hoping the sincerity shone through.

“That’s alright, though I must admit, it’s quite an interesting phrase.” She smiled, still. Roger could somehow tell that she wasn’t being malicious.

“Why, thank you!” He decided on.

She gave him the total, they exchanged the money and he was out of the corner-shop and back to his tiny flat in no time. He mixed a glass of vodka and orange juice and set about to work on his hair.

Half an hour later he was pleasantly buzzed, hair laying a little more flat on his scalp. Not slicked, but not as unruly as it had been before. His legs were clad in black faux-leather and a white shirt to top it off. He winked at himself in the mirror. Absentmindedly thinking about whether to get his platform boots or sneakers.

An hour into the party and more drinks than he was willing or _able _to count, his head was positively spinning, as he lounged sideways on a sofa in Freddie’s flat. His head lulling comfortably in someone’s lap. There were fingers stroking through his hair, Roger wasn’t sure how he hadn’t floated away yet. Especially when said person started properly scratching at his scalp, as opposed to just running their fingers along the locks. He locked eyes with said person then.

“What?”

“Fuck off!”

Roger fell into fit of giggles then, head swimming pleasantly. Pressing the man’s hand tighter against his own scalp, to reassure him he hadn’t meant it. Though Roger figured he’d gathered as much already, with how his own phrase had tumbled off his tongue. Had Roger said his first, it almost would’ve made sense. If the tattoo on the inside of his wrist didn’t say differently. Roger nuzzled his head into the boy’s tummy, sighing contentedly.

“Hey.” The voice was gentle. Roger groaned.

It came again, along with a push against his cheek. Forcing him to meet a pair of kind, hazel, eyes. If keeping his head from lulling back on its side wasn’t such a chore, he probably would’ve even appreciated the sight of them.

“I’m comfy.” He protested instead.

“I can tell.” The man smiled at him, everything about him seemed so gentle. He had an unruly mop of curls on top of his head, they looked so soft. Roger reached out to touch them.

“You’re pretty.” Roger was nothing if not honest.

“Thank you.”

Something heavy draped itself on top of him then, sitting uncomfortably on his hipbone. The weight distributing itself more evenly when the person fell to meet his eyes then. Body jammed itself between Roger and the sofa, head resting against the curly haired boy’s upper arm.

“I see you’ve met Brian!” Freddie slurred his words a bit, looking at Roger from under heavy eyelids.

“He’s a great scalp scratcher.” Roger mumbled.

He could vaguely hear Freddie going on about him to Brian, telling him all about his drumming and various stories from their nights out. He grinned to himself, and at Brian’s reactions. Genuine little huffs of laughs escaping him on every other breath. He vaguely wondered what it’d feel like to meet his actual soulmate, when drunken crushes could feel _this_ nice.

He woke up with hair in his mouth and all his clothes, surprisingly, still on. It took him ten more seconds of just staring up at the ceiling to realise how heavy his chest felt, and that the hair in his mouth wasn’t his own.

“Hey.” He rasped out, nudging the figure using him as a human pillow.

A groan is what he received in reply, so he nudged him a bit harder. To no use, apparently. He resigned himself to playing with the curly hair splayed across his own chest, tuning in to the soft heartbeat he could feel against his stomach. Contrasting to the sharp figure of the man on top of him, a sharp hipbone digging into Roger’s own thigh. It hurt, but he found he didn’t have it in him to disturb him.

Until he moved, and he could swear the bone jutting into Roger’s body almost pierced his skin. He yelped. “Shit!”

The boy jumped and rolled himself off of Roger, subsequently off the sofa and onto the floor. Hitting it with a loud thump. Roger couldn’t help but to laugh. He received a pointed glare for a solid three seconds, before they both erupted into a fit of giggles.

Brian had since then become one of his closest friends. He found out he played the guitar and Brian, Freddie and himself had even jammed together sometimes. Roger felt he enjoyed the company of the two, and the music they produced out of thin air was nothing if not impressive. If he had a say in it himself.

“Isn’t it strange how there’s one person out there, designed for you?” Brian pondered aloud, sat upon a sofa in the far corner. Red special in his lap. Roger was fascinated at how a person could ponder as much as Brian did. He seemed to have a new conversational topic for each break they took from playing.

“It’s romantic and sweet, is what it is.” Freddie added, helpfully. Brian didn’t seem satisfied though, a frown appearing upon his face.

“It’s, technically, not true.” Roger started. Seemingly peaking Brian’s interest, as he looked over at him from the other side of the sofa, with a quirked eyebrow.

“What do you mean?” His voice was thoughtful as per usual. Roger has never felt as big of a satisfaction explaining things as he did with Brian. He made him want to spread his knowledge, made him feel like getting a biology degree was worth it.

“They’re not really, made _for _you?”

Brian nodded his head, urging Roger to continue explaining.

“It kind of ties into your field, with physics. You know how time is linear?” Roger continued, Brian nodded. “And all the particles remain the same, no additions and no subtractions.” Another nod. “And this is all still just a theory, though it has strong evidence behind it. But,”

“Cut to the chase, darling!” Freddie was growing impatient, Roger couldn’t blame him. Brian just glared at him.

“I was just about to.” Roger stated very calmly, for his standards. “Anyhow, it’s thought that the soul is made out of particles too, essentially making a person who they are, you know? Like we know little about consciousness yet we know it exists? Souls are kind of the same. Soulmates are thought to have their origin in the same soul. Not two separate ones created solely _for_ each other.” He emphasised the word for.

“Right,” Brian was rubbing his pointer finger against his cheek, trying to absorb the information. “Soulmates are derived from the demise of a person, after the soul, splits?”

Roger nodded, smiling slightly at Brian’s choice of words. Always so eloquent. “Exactly my point.”

“Wouldn’t that make them like, related?” Freddie chuckled from where he was reclining on a chair, behind Roger’s drum set.

Brian groaned. Roger chuckled. He picked his fights wisely, sometimes. This one wasn’t worth discussing. As if on cue, Freddie fell off the chair.

A week went by before Brian had another revelation. This one he had in the middle of dinner, almost dropping his fork into his salad. “I don’t understand!” He shrieked, then.

“That’s a first.”

“Shut up, Freddie.”

“Do go on, you’ve got my full, undivided attention.” Freddie carried on, dramatically.

“Thank you.” Brian replied, calmly as ever. Even with a frustrated look in his eyes. “How does the soul tell the future, with the phrases and the tattoos.”

It wasn’t anything Roger hadn’t thought about before, it was as mysterious as what happens before life and after death. People chose to believe different things. Brian, though, seemed to be extra prone to existentialism. And no amount of comforting words could help him when he got in his moods.

“We don’t know, Brian.” A loud groan followed by, what Roger could only guess, was Brian smacking his own head down against the table could be heard. “The linear time theory supports that in some sense of the word. But it’s not foolproof.”

Brian waved him off, “I’ll take it, thank you Roger.”

After that, Brian had taken interest in Roger’s field of study and would ask him questions whenever he was around. Everything from how your brain processes information to why you didn’t have sensation in the strands of your hair. Mostly it was about soulmates, though.

“Why do you stop greeting people with it, after you’ve found your soulmate?” Brian asked.

“You won’t need it anymore then, do you?”

“Fair enough.”

“Why a tattoo _and_ a phrase?” Brian questioned, yet again.

“I don’t know, to foolproof the selection process? Making sure it really is your soulmate?” Roger theorised.

“But most people’s just say _hi_ or _hello_ or _thank you_.” Brian groaned.

“Valid point.” Roger added.

Brian had almost ripped a hair out in frustration then. He decided to leave the topic alone for a while.

Roger had a suspiciously smooth sailing couple of weeks after that. _Suspiciously_. Something was _bound_ to happen. He had woken up late for band practice, missed his bus and just as he stepped on said, but albeit later, bus he realised he’d forgotten his wallet. As if that wasn’t enough he’d also stepped into a puddle of mud, _mud_. Staining his white pants a disturbing shade of brown. He was ready to fucking erupt.

When he made his way up the stairs, two at a time, he’d tripped. Because _of course_ he did. And when he’d made his final way to the door of the music room, someone was stood _in front_ of it. He took a deep breath, genuinely attempting to calm himself down, however all that came out was a guttural,

“Fuck off!”

The person turned around then, dropping his hand from its knocking motion. Meeting Roger’s eyes, and he was. Grinning?

“If you insist?”

Roger stopped in his tracks then. Breath still coming short from his stair-climbing. He was sure he looked wild as anything, his eyes probably the size of saucers. So much for wanting to look cool in front of his soulmate. He suddenly found he couldn’t find it in himself when he was stood _right_ in front of him.

“Are you joking?” He muttered more to himself than to anyone else. The boy had the audacity to giggle again. Crinkles forming around his slightly hooded eyes.

“I’m afraid not.”

He watched the boy roll his sleeve up slightly, revealing a single phrase. Matching the one he himself had said aloud, perfectly. He didn’t know what else to do, so he mirrored the movement, revealing a neatly written tattoo saying “If you insist?” In italics, on his own wrist. They gawked at each other in silence.

Roger didn’t consider himself a sap, but he was almost certain there wasn’t a scientific explanation behind his heart pounding, _this_ fast. More like a trapped bird with a wildly fluttering wing, than a necessary always functioning, life provider. He grasped the boy’s wrist to feel the wild thumping there, too.

“Roger.” He managed to say, as he pressed the taller boy’s hand to his own chest.

“John.” Was the reply. Roger smiled, his insides feeling light. Somehow.

He found himself leaning forwards, pressing his whole being into John. His face pressed tightly to the skin of his throat, breathing him in. He felt completed somehow. Or maybe perfectly compatible was the right term. He never saw himself as _incomplete_, as per say. He was complete before, but now he felt. Amplified. More aware.

When he did pull away from the embrace, it was reluctantly. John’s arms feeling unlike anything else wrapped around his shoulders. He had to tilt his head up, just a fraction, to properly look him in the eyes. They were green, hooded, and kinder than Roger felt he deserved. Framed by a pair of thick, strongly shaped, dark eyebrows. Roger already trusted him with his life.

He felt a thumb running across his bottom lip, first. The rest of a hand gently cradling his face next. His breath caught in his throat. Pathetically.

The eyes he was staring into, crinkled a bit at the sides, a small, barely there wrinkle forming between his eyebrows. Roger understood, and nodded slightly. Then their lips brushed together, tentatively. Roger felt like he could cry with how happy he was. Smiling into John’s lips and pulling him closer by the hips.

The door creaked open then, John’s head turning around sharply. Roger held him firmly in place though.

“Looks like we didn’t even have to do anything, Brian!” Freddie shouted into the room

Roger looked at Freddie in confusion, clutching John’s waist in both hands. He was so slender, he reckoned he could almost reach the whole way around.

“Are you just going to stand there?” Freddie asked, eyes glimmering with something naughty. Roger was going to punch him in the face. In a friendly way. John was quicker to action, however.

“Sorry,” He was _polite_ too. A true gentleman, even as he pried Roger’s hands away from his body, clutching one of them in his own and leading him inside. Much to Brian’s pleasure, apparently.

“How’d you find his opening phrase then, John?” Brian asked, cheekily.

“Yeah, really sweeps you off your feet, doesn’t it?” Freddie chipped in, perfect amount of sarcasm in his tone. Roger was going to perfect it one day.

Instead of thinking up a perfect retort he brought their linked hands up. Rolling his own sleeve down, followed by John’s. Stretching them out for Freddie and Brian to see. Freddie actually screamed, Brian just looked shell-shocked. John had a shy smile across his lips, Roger felt warm.

Freddie was the first one to erupt in giggles, John followed suit. Brian and Roger shared a confused glance before they too joined in. Soulmates were rare enough, finding yours this way? Ridiculous. Laughter seemed the only appropriate reaction. And so they laughed, and laughed. Roger laughing into the skin of John’s throat, so warm and smooth. Burying himself in the vibrations from his vocal cords.

“I found it quite alright.” John whispered, barely audibly.

He grasped Roger’s hand tighter. Roger’s insides just about avoided turning into mush.

Roger found it quite alright how he never had to utter that phrase, ever again.


End file.
